


Don't Make Us Weapons

by thephilosophah



Series: Blackwatch Week 2017 [1]
Category: Overwatch (Video Game)
Genre: Gen, gabriel just wants the kid to get better, genji is angry angsty and in pain
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-07-23
Updated: 2017-07-23
Packaged: 2018-12-05 21:56:52
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,070
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11586984
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thephilosophah/pseuds/thephilosophah
Summary: Gabriel and Genji talk about decidedlynotbeing weapons.(Blackwatch Week, day 1: Missions/Weapons)





	Don't Make Us Weapons

**Author's Note:**

> this is my first time participating in a {character/ship/group} week, im very excited! the prompts felt easier to do fic for, rather than art, so here it is!!

Genji hasn't moved for at least half an hour, maybe more. But Gabriel wouldn't know, he's only been here for that half-hour and all of it has been filled with Genji still as a statue.

As soon as Gabriel gets patched up, he walks over to Genji's bed.

"Shimada?"

Genji remains still. Behind his back and a bit to the right, one of the monitors he's hooked up to signals that his heart rate picks up.

Gabriel snaps his fingers in front of Genji's face. "Hey, Genji. Boy, are you with us?"

Genji blinks. One of his hands slacks around the sword in it.

Gabriel picks the sword up. Genji moves.

"Hey that's mine-"

"What's your deal with it?"

"Give it back!"

"Come again, soldier?"

Genji growls, a feral little cackle of static he figured how to do for the sole purpose of expressing distaste at Blackwatch. "Give it back, _sir._ "

Gabriel puts the sword in Genji's lap. "You've been staring at this damn piece of metal for a fucking eternity. What's wrong?"

"It's not..." Genji trails off. He curls in on himself, around the blade, not quite going for the handle. "It isn't something I can... I don't want to talk about it."

"Well we can't have you freezing up on us either. I'll take it away if I have to."

Genji shoots up. The monitor behind him changes the display from green to orange. "No don't! It's nothing, I'm fine!"

"Never said you weren't. Why wouldn't you be?"

With a sigh, Genji admits defeat. "It's not the sword I'm mulling over, please don't take it from me. Sir."

Gabriel sits at the edge of the bed. The hospital sheets make a paper-like noise, and thank fuck Genji doesn't have much of a sense of touch or the sheets alone would drive him insane. "What's on your mind?"

"Can you keep it a secret?"

"I won't if it affects your field performance."

"That's fair." Genji rubs the bridge of his nose with his flesh hand. "You said you knew about the Shimada dragons?"

"I've seen them in battle once or twice."

"Well, I have one."

"So I'd expect."

Genji leans back on his plentiful pillows. "It's not- well. There's... two types of dragons, I guess. It's either attack or defence. Kind of. Mine is a spirit of protection."

Gabriel's eyebrows rise up. "You were glowing when we found you. Did you know?"

"No, I didn't, but thanks for telling me. Did you see it?"

"What?"

"My dragon."

"No. _You_ were glowing."

"Mmm. Smart. Though what I'm worried about is, well. It protects me. _It's_ keeping me alive, sir. No offence to your doctor but it's keeping me alive, right now, and all those months."

Genji hiccups. Vaguely, Gabriel remembers that Genji lost all his digestive and most of his respiratory system, and wonders what the sound actually was.

"And it's tired", Genji continues. "It's exhausted, it's broken and burning up. Even if I send it back to the wind, it's so, so tired. Sir. And now you want to make it into a weapon?"

Genji looks up from the sword. Gabriel's thought, the one where the hiccup sound was a sob, gets tossed out the window, because Genji's eyes burn.

"Is it not enough that you've made _me_ a piece of equipment? I haven't called it into battle in years. I haven't sent it to a blade in _years,_ sir."

Gabriel glares back. He won't be intimidated by a cyborg two decades younger. Still, this isn't a fight, no matter how much Genji picks for one. So Gabriel huffs and looks down at his own broken fingers, set in cast and expected to heal by tomorrow.

"Genji, we are not trying to make your dragon into a weapon. Nor you."

"How can you say that?" Genji growls, static cracking loud. "How can you say that after what you've done?" He pulls stars between his fingers and stabs one of them on the mattress. "Who the fuck digs blades under another's arms? You've literally shoved them under my skin. How do you still have the audacity to say you're not making me a weapon, _sir?"_

Genji's face curls up something ugly at the last word and Gabriel carefully picks his words.

"We are not turning you into a weapon. Your dragon won't be turned into a weapon. We are... using it offensively. We use you to cause harm."

"That's what weapons do."

"That's what _people_ do. People can cause hurt, Genji. We just do it for a living."

"I thought Overwatch's purpose was to save the world."

Gabriel rubs the back of his neck. Genji's monitor shows slow and steady heartbeat.

"It was, maybe. At the start. When the hurt we made was on the omnics that had killed hundreds. But now, it's... it's not that simple. And anyway, my point is that you don't do anything else with your time. Since you got here, all you've ever done was heal and train. And that beats the purpose. You're only a weapon when you fight, and you've done nothing but. Get a hobby, Shimada."

Genji wraps his flesh hand around the handle of the sword and his metal one around the blade. "I can't think of anything that'd leave me with enough time to do what you have me here for."

"Tell you what, I hate to have you spill your guts all over like this, so I'll share a bit with you, how's that sound?"

Genji grabs the sword's sheath and hides the blade. "Sure."

"I had a problem like this back is SEP. All fight, nothing else to focus on, basically living for blood. And no time for it, right? Between training and experiments, who the fuck'd have time to sit for anything- well don't. Find a thing that doesn't need to be done in one large sitting. Like a book, read or write one. Or a puzzle. Sudoku. Something like that."

Genji frowns at the wall for a moment. "Sir?"

"Yes."

"What was your thing you did?

"Crochet."

Genji tilts his head. "What?"

"Crochet. Like knitting, but with a hook instead of needles." Gabriel raises a hand, sees the cast around his fingers, uses his other hand to tug on his beanie.

Genji blinks twice. "Did you make that?"

"No, but the stitches look like this, so." He shrugs.

"Huh", Genji goes, and leaves it at that.

 


End file.
